A Message From the Guy Who Won the Lottery and Wants to Share His Money With Everyone on Facebook by Henry Birdseye
I just want to change the world with this money. I could donate it to a charity, but what is a charity, really? A bunch of strangers who give your money to even more strangers? No thank you! I only deal with first-degree strangers!
Have any of you see the Facebook meme about the lottery winner that’s been going around for the last 2 days? Basically it’s a grainy webcam photo of a bearded white guy holding a winning Mega Millions ticket. The caption reads, “This dude actually won and hes planin on splittin a little with anyone who shares his update sooo im sharing.” It is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. It’s also been shared tens of thousands of times.
So, last night I took a crappy webcam photo of myself holding a blank check, then photoshopped some fake information onto it, and wrote the above post about a lottery winner who wants to share his money with total strangers. It’s all deliberately absurd. I talk about flying to people’s houses on a jet, and I brag about owning a laser printer. The zeros on the check run onto my hand, and the check itself is signed by Barack Obama.
And people still aren’t getting it.
Which is fine, I guess? There’s something sweet about people wanting all of this stuff to be real. It reminds me of little kids believing in Santa, only this time it’s grown adults, and Santa is a sneaky jpeg. Either way, both parties should be able to verify whether it’s a hoax or not. (Hey CHILDREN, it’s called GOOGLE. ASKJEEVES IT.)
Anyway, I’ve made a public Facebook post on Slacktory that’s very similar to the original hoax photo. You can share it if you want, ideally with a caption like “oh man i hope its true!!!” Consider it an experiment: Will your friends get the joke, or will they pass it along without realizing the check’s memo says, “Won real lottery”?
